The Cerritos softball team dropped its final game of the season to El Camino 12-6 Tuesday, April 25.
Four days after the matchup with the Warriors, The Falcons received the seventh seed for the Southern California Regional Playoffs.
Cerritos will now play Citrus College in a best two out of three series with the Owls starting Friday at Nancy Kelly Field.
No matter how the team finished the season, Head Coach Kodee Murray is exceptionally proud of her players.
“I think the thing about softball, and especially at Cerritos, is how you get through adversity and that is what this team has done. It has stayed in the battle and has pushed itself and made a choice to be the best that it can be,” Murray said.
Cerritos started out the day by completing a game against El Camino that was postponed due to rain Tuesday, March 21 with a 16-0 loss.
Immediately after the Falcons would play the final game of the season also against the Warriors.
Cerritos took an early 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first inning when sophomore Kylee Brown hit a two RBI double.
They added another run in the second inning thanks to an error that allowed Emma Wolff to reach first base. Catcher Briana Lopez would drive in Wolff with a RBI single to left field.
Cerritos scored again on another El Camino error that allowed freshman Carly Gutierrez to reach base and freshman Kristen Voller to drive her in with a base hit in the third inning.
El Camino came back in the fourth inning with three runs to tie the game
In the bottom of the fourth Lopez hit a two run home run for her eight of the season to give the Falcons a 6-4 lead.
This would be the last runs scored by the Falcons who were held to just two hits the rest of the game while El Camino drove in eight more runs.
The Falcons finished in third place in the South Coast Conference South division with a 7-5 record.
Three of the Falcons five conference loses were to El Camino.
Going into the postseason Voller says Regionals will be a whole new ballgame.
“It’s different from Conference because you play the same team back-to-back so you are able to make adjustments. The biggest challenge will be only having those nine or 10 girls and trying to get through those games.”
Like the rest of her teammates, she is confident they will be ready to compete.
“I’m sure we can do it, I have complete faith in the girls so it’s going to be fun.”
With 26 wins overall and seven conference wins, the Cerritos College softball team has proven to its coaches and each other that it knows how to win.
Coach Murray credits the leadership of her players Brown, Wolf, Olivas, Voller, Lopez, and the entire team for stepping up and always giving 100 percent.
“This is a team that will go on and finish college and have something to give back to the community.
“[The team] doesn’t know it now, but at the end of the season this will be one of the proudest experiences they have ever had,” Murray said.
